Never mind Osama; this is a pre-Carlos-the-Jackal border posture. It can't last. The Madrid attack will wreak much change in European border control, intelligence gathering, and counterterrorism procedure over the next few years, exactly as 9/11 did in the United States. EU politicians are heatedly discussing creating the position of an "anti-terrorism czar," a data manager not unlike Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Tom Ridge. In fact, the events in Madrid changed U.S. policy. In April, the DHS began requiring Europeans visiting this country—even those not required to have visas—to submit to finger scanning and digital photography, forcing millions into a U.S. Customs database in which their images will be kept for seventy-five years.

To date, EU border control has been operating under a "hard outer shell, soft inner core" protocol. This means that upon entering the EU, a traveler is supposed to be inspected as one would be on entry to any sovereign country, including a cross-check with Interpol's organized-crime and terror databases. Not much of this procedure is at work on me now.

Spain and Italy have long had a reputation as the EU's "soft underbelly," vulnerable to illegal entry or, as in the case of the Madrid bombings, legal entry with malicious intent. Both countries" security agencies have assiduously rounded up Al Qaeda networks, but both are close to North Africa. That fourteen of the first eighteen arrests in Madrid last March and April were of Moroccans was no accident. Before the bombings, Moroccans in Spain enjoyed a special immigration status, which was exploited by the Madrid bombers just as the Al Qaeda architects of 9/11 exploited the ease of Saudi immigration to the United States.

At the hotel in Nerja, the Balcón de Europa, so named for its perch on the sheer cliffs above the Mediterranean, about 130 miles from Tangiers, we go for a glass of wine as the concierge performs the time-honored duty of registering our passports. He does this by putting them in a copier. He might call or fax the local Guardia Civil (national police) prefecture, but I'm betting that, as at the airport, our "American" profile will make that redundant.

"We will have your passports back to you within the hour," the concierge says dramatically.

Except for the concierge and, possibly, the Guardia, no one else in Spain has registered my name. The hotel room, paid for by the wedding couple, was booked under my wife's name. We have no rental car, and there's no food to be bought; we're just walking to wedding functions.

The only trackable object I carry—my data-generating watchdog—is my London-based Nokia 6310i cell phone, programmed to bark faithfully whenever I cross an international border, and it now thrums with welcome messages from Vodafone España. Since we started out in Spain, I dub him Sancho Panza. Much like Cervantes's Sancho, mine is a mixture of helpmeet and nosy-ass busybody. He sends me little tourist tips and dialing instructions. Whatever mad project I have in mind is fine by him. It's like having a valet. But because the phone network can find me, information about my physical movements can be forwarded by the leasing firm to any law enforcement entity that might take an interest.